Wife and children of church elder escape Sudan
Presbyterian family reunited after six months
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (21.11.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (22.11.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The wife and children of a Presbyterian church elder escaped from Sudan 10 days ago, six months after the elder had fled southern Sudan for his life.
Chaplain Soma Jackson, 34, confirmed last week from a refugee camp neighboring Sudan that his wife, Mary Kidy, their four children and his mother arrived there to join him on November 9.
"He is praising God to be reunited with his family," a source confirmed in Sudan.
Jackson's wife had been under considerable pressure from Sudanese security forces of the Islamist government regime to reveal the whereabouts of her husband since he fled Juba last May. For five months previous to that, security police subjected Jackson to a series of harsh interrogations and torture, including an April ordeal that left him half dead.
Although employed as a mechanical engineer, Jackson also served as a Presbyterian evangelist and church elder in Juba, a city in southern Sudan controlled by the Khartoum government in the north. Few southern Sudanese clergy have remained in government-held territory during the second decade of a punishing civil war between the Arab Muslim North and the predominantly Christian/animist South.
Security police suspicions against Jackson were apparently triggered by his visit to Norway in August 2000, representing the Presbyterian Church of Sudan. Under the auspices of the Sudan Council of Churches, the 10-day trip to sister churches in Oslo had been organized in conjunction with Norwegian Church Aid and the Norwegian Council of Churches.
After his return in mid September, Jackson prepared a report about his visit and presented it to the local Inter-Church Committee in early November. Two weeks later, as he was returning home from a Sunday evening church activity on November 26, he was arrested by Muslim security police and taken in for questioning. He was also beaten.
When security officials released him early the next morning, they warned him they could return at any time to arrest him again. For weeks afterwards, he would see security authorities driving through his neighborhood and past his home.
Jackson was so disturbed by the arrest and surveillance that he began sleeping at night in his kitchen, so he could make a quick escape if officials returned for him.
Six weeks later, again on a Sunday, Jackson was arrested off the street and questioned, although not physically mistreated. On January 9, men on motorbikes, one armed with a pistol, came to his home, demanding that his wife tell them his whereabouts.
In April after three uneasy months, Jackson was arrested a third time, this time at 9 a.m. on his way to work. For two hours, the same questions were repeated, this time accompanied by shouting, beating and kicking. The physical abuse came after he asked why they kept asking him questions he had already answered.
"If you knew what this place is," they shouted, "you would not ask that kind of question!"
They then locked him into a metal container, a dreaded torture chamber that prisoners can rarely survive for more than five hours. Without any ventilation and reeking with dirt and urine, the container's walls were burning hot, making it impossible for the prisoner to lean against them for even a moment.
After three hours, Jackson's tormentors ordered him to come out of the container. But he was so exhausted they had to drag him out to continue their interrogations. When he proved unable to even reply, they drove him to an area near his house and dumped him out. "You can kill me," he mustered the strength to tell them before they drove off, "but one day, you will die as well."
After recovering from his ordeal, Jackson learned that his name was on the security police list in another city in the south besides Juba, effectively restricting him from getting on an airplane or trying to leave the area any other way.
Three weeks later, a friend risked his own life to arrange for Jackson's safe transfer out of Juba in early May to Khartoum. "If you are found again in this country," the contact warned, "your blood is not on my head."
Although able to remain relatively anonymous in the crowded capital city, Jackson was alarmed to learn by telephone that security officials back in Juba had visited his wife twice that next week, trying to find out where he had gone.
Early in June, Jackson managed to leave Sudan and take refuge across the border. From his refugee camp quarters, he kept in touch with friends trying to help his family leave Sudan to join him. From the Kuku tribe of southern Sudan, Jackson and his wife have four children, ages 13, 10, 9 and 2.
Until now, Jackson has been the recipient of daily food distribution. But as a trained engineer, he is actively trying to find work in the area surrounding the refugee camp. "He is struggling to get a church established in the camp where he is staying," confirmed a friend. He said Jackson and his wife had no plans to try to return to Sudan.
The Sudanese government, which has declared a "jihad" [Muslim religious war] against the southern non-Muslim rebels, has condoned the slavery, physical abuse and forcible conversion to Islam of thousands of southern Sudanese Christians since coming to power in a 1989 coup.
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Bishop appeals for release of abducted relief worker
African Church Information Service/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX (09.11.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (13.11.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The recent kidnapping of humanitarian workers in Sudan's northern Bahr el Ghazal is yet another testimony of Khartoum's lack of respect for human rights, a Catholic bishop has said. Bishop Caesar Mazzolari of Diocese of Rumbek, southern Sudan, expressed the sentiments in Rome, Italy, during an interview with the Catholic news agency, MISNA. He said Khartoum must immediately order the release of 27-year-old Kenyan Juliana Mururi if it is to convince the world that it respects human rights.
Pro-government militia seized Ms Mururi on November 2.
A spokesman of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) said she was taken together with two male Sudanese co-workers, whose names could not be identified.
Mr John Duku, SPLA's representative to Nordic countries, said in a press release that the government army and the horseback riding Arab militias, commonly known as Murahileen, carried out the abductions. Ms Mururi worked as a nutritionist at Nyamlel.
"I feel that Juliana Mururi's liberation is an act of justice that the government of Khartoum must carry out if it wants to demonstrate to the world that human rights are respected in Sudan", said Bishop Mazzolari.
He added that during the joint ACP-EU Assembly on November 1, in a resolution voted in Brussels, the Sudan government was called to respect human rights, particularly those of religious personnel. "I, therefore call, on the authorities of Khartoum to free the Kenyan volunteer", said the cleric.
"At the time of her kidnapping, she was working in a war zone with the sole intent of assisting the tired civil population".
Bishop Mazzolari also urged all the churches in Sudan and Muslims of good will to pray for the prompt release of the hostage. Ms Mururi was abducted in Aweil town as she attempted to flee from marauding government troops and militias, who raided the nearby town of Nyamlel.
"This barbaric behaviour confirms our assertion that the National Islamic Front (NIF) is determined to carry on with its declared objective of Jihad (Islamic holy war), said Duku.
Duku said the government troops were very much aware of where the SPLA units are, but they avoided such and instead attacked relief centres. "Such military policy has resulted in massive displacement of the civil population in Nyamlel and surrounding areas," he said.
He called on the international community to condemn the Sudanese government and ask for the immediate release of the workers, who he said were being held in the government military garrison of Wadweil, north of Nyamlel.
Nyamlel falls under the Diocese of Wau, but Wau, is in government-held territory, forcing the neighbouring Diocese of Rumbek that lies in the south to co-ordinate most of the pastoral and relief operations there.
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Jihad-bombings kill 16 black African civilians
15 children dead, 8 children wounded
CSI (15.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (17.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - On the afternoon of Sunday, October 7, the Government of Sudan killed 15 Black, non-Muslim children and one elderly woman in bombing raids on the villages of Gukic and Mayom Deng Akol, in the Mangok district of Aweil East County, northern Bahr El Ghazal, according to County Commissioner Victor Akok. Eight children were also wounded in the aerial assaults. Sudanese Government Antonov aircraft dropped six bombs on each village.
The Dead
Akiir Maduok Deng, 7 years
Athuai Deng Deng, 4 years
Arac Bol Agany, 11 years
Atong Yel Bol, 8 years
Maciek Lual Mon, 12 years
Madut Garang Deng, 10 years
Deng Yel Bol, 5 years
Garang Geng Akec, 8 years
Wek Kuol Gum, 9 years
Wol Garang Aguer, 9 years
Maduoc Mathiek, 10 years
Lino Ngor Nuer, 9 years
Akeen Wieu Kuol, 12 years
Ajou Lual Akon, 6 years
Mrs Abuk Akot Garang, 52 years
Anei Mabior Anguok, 10 years
The Wounded
Malong Wol Angui, 13 years
Majok Amuoi Wol, 10 years
Deng Ayii Bol, 12 years
Kawac Madwok, 3 years
Achok Lual Bol, 3 years
Acuil Athian Deng, 8 years
Adeng Angara Bol, 6 years
Angui Chol Wol, 4 years
The Sudanese Government has intensified its aerial bombardment of civilian targets, including U.N. humanitarian aid centers, since the U.N. Security Council lifted sanctions against Sudan in the aftermath of the jihad-terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The radical Islamist Government of Sudan, once a host to the terrorist network of Osama bin Ladin, is waging a declared jihad (Islamic Holy War) against Black non-Muslim communities that resist Islamization and Arabization.
Since 1983, approximately two million Black Sudanese civilians have died and over four million have been displaced, according to the US Committee for Refugees. The civil authorities in northern Bahr El Ghazal report that a minimum of 200,000 Black, non-Muslim women and children have been enslaved by the armed forces and allied militias of the Government of Sudan.
On October 4, Sudans First Vice-President, Ali Osman Taha, renewed the call for jihad against non-Muslim Black African communities (AFP, Khartoum, October 4, 2001).
Five days later, 48 leading Sudanese Muslim clerics issued a jihad-fatwa (Islamic legal ruling) during a violent demonstration in Khartoum against the United States, stating: America is the greatest enemy of Islam and it embraces blasphemy, guards the Jews and protects their terrorism (AP, Khartoum, October 9, 2001).
In a message to CSI, Commissioner Akok expressed profound dismay that jihad-terrorists have succeeded in extending their acts of violence to the United States. He also urged U.S. President George Bush to observe zero tolerance of all forms of jihad-terror against non-Muslims who refuse to accept subjugation to Islam.
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Sudanese police torture convert student
Family maintains virtual house arrest
by Barbara G. Baker
Compass (08.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (09.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A Sudanese student who converted from Islam to Christianity was severely beaten and tortured by security police in Khartoum two weeks ago, apparently at his own family's instigation.
Mohammed Saeed Mohammed Omer Omer confirmed to Compass today that his uncle had threatened to kill him on September 19, just three days before he was arrested off a Khartoum street.
Omer's family had become determined to force the young convert to stop attending church and meeting with Christians, a local Christian said. Security officials picked him up on September 22, as he was returning from a personal discipleship appointment with a local pastor.
"He was tortured and beaten," the source said, "and he lost three fingernails pulled out with pliers." The convert reportedly was forced by security police to sign papers promising not to attend any church or Christian gatherings again.
Omer has refused, however, to renounce his faith in Christ.
Omer became a Christian last December, while studying economics in an Indian university near New Delhi. When his parents were informed by some of their son's Sudanese acquaintances in India that Omer had "abandoned the way and faith of Islam," they ordered him to return home.
To punish him for his decision, Omer's family told him they planned to publicly disown him by cutting off his share of the family's wealth as soon as he returned, in the presence of the entire family and a lawyer. Since he was dependent totally on their financing, Omer saw no other choice, and caught an Ethiopian Air flight back to Sudan on July 17.
But as soon as he arrived, his family confiscated his return ticket and passport, threatening to turn him over to the security police if he did not recant and return to Islam. Omer persisted, however, in attending church services and other Christian meetings in Khartoum over the next two months.
After his uncle's death threat, Omer moved away from home to live with a friend. But since his arrest and torture, he remains under virtual house arrest by his family, who try to monitor his telephone calls and limit his use of the Internet.
"Right now he is recovering," a local source said. "But he does not know what to do next."
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Sudanese Christians flogged, imprisoned
WRNS (23.04.2001) HRWF International Secretariat (24.04.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The leaders of 10 Christian denominations have protested to the Sudanese premier over the treatment of Christians during Holy Week and Easter when more than 100 worshippers were arrested and given harsh sentences following unrest sparked by the cancellation of an inter-denominational open-air Easter service.
Moreover on Easter Monday, April 16, an airplane carrying the bishop of El Obeid, Macram Max Gassis, on a pastoral visit to Catholics, was caught in an attack by government bombers on an airfield in the Nuba mountain region. The bishop and his entourage were unhurt but a militiaman was killed and two civilians were injured. The Khartoum regime has long seen the bishop as an obstacle to their efforts to depopulate and demoralize the people of the Nuba region which is rich in resources.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), based in the United Kingdom,recalls that Article 24 of Sudan's 1998 constitution provides for freedom of religion and guarantees religious coexistence, but the Khartoum government continues to suppress Sudanese Christians. In an appeal launched today, the CSW reports that German evangelist Reinhard Bonnke was to lead an ecumenical Easter service on April 10, in Khartoum's Green Square. Last year he held a similar event which went off peacefully. As usual the churches paid US$2,400 for
the rental of Green Square. However, the Khartoum authorities insisted on a change of venue to the outskirts of town on a site owned by Muslim fundamentalists who, prior to the event, whipped up anti-Christian sentiment accusing Bonnke of being a "witchcraft infidel and a blasphemous Christian."
Given the air of menace, church leaders decided to cancel the service but many Christians, unaware of the cancellation, gathered in Green Square as previously advertised. Police used tear gas and force to disperse them, and some responded by stoning passing vehicles.
Three people suffered gunshot wounds and others were seriously beaten and wounded. All Saints Cathedral, where several people had gathered to pray, was severely damaged in a police attack. About 100 people were reportedly arrested. On April 12, 57 of those arrested were brought to court anddenied legal representation: 48 men were sentenced to twenty lashes, while three boys and six women were given five lashes each. Flogging is usually reserved for offenses involving the consumption of alcohol or illicit sexual relations. The remaining 48 people were sentenced to 20 days in prison.
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AFP (11.04.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (17.04.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net_Email:info@hrwf.net Several Christians were injured and some 100 were arrested Wednesday in clashes in Khartoum between security forces and worshippers protesting a government order to move an Easter service to a suburb, witnesses said.
Among the people arrested were pastors, said the witnesses, who could not say exactly how many protesters were injured.
Thousands of young Christians, almost all of them from southern Sudan, had gathered in front of the All-Saints Church in downtown Khartoum and began to throw stones at passing cars to protest the government's cancellation of a service due to take place Tuesday.
Clashes had also broken out Tuesday after the government order was announced, with police injuring some protesters and detaining about 40 people, church officials said.
A visiting German evangelist, Reinhard Bonnke, took a flight back home Tuesday night after the Sudan Council of Churches advised him to leave.
"We refused to move the celebration in view of the short notice and of the unsuitability of the proposed venue," said Enock Tombe Stethen, the church council's secretary general.
At a press conference Wednesday in the All-Saints Church, Episcopal Church secretary general Ezekiel Kondo called for an investigation into the Tuesday clashes "to redress the injustice Christians to which Christians are subjected."
Church council vice president Taban Alu Nyal called for a meeting between Christian leaders and President Omar al-Beshir, but said efforts for him to see the country's leader has so far failed.
Nyal said former Sudanese president Abel Alier had briefly been arrested in the clash Tuesday but released after questioning.
The church official added that security services were still holding about 100 Christians and that he would be requestioned himself Thursday.
Interior Minister Abdel Rahim Mohammed was quoted saying Wednesday that the prayer service was prohibited from an open space in Khartoum to "avert friction between different believers."
But Mohammed, quoted by the independent Al-Ayam daily, said his government respects the right of all people, including Christians, to practice their religion.
He noted that when Pope John Paul II visited Sudan in 1993, he gave a mass in the same square (Green Square) where the prayer service was banned on Tuesday.
Religious tension is rife in Sudan, where the mostly Christian and animist south has been fighting successive Islamic and Arab governments in Khartoum for the past 18 years.
Southern Sudan C 700,000 displaced in one year
Whole villages machine-gunned by government forces
CIP (12.02.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (05.03.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Michel Roy from the Catholic aid agency CARITAS denounced the fact that in less than a year, almost 700,000 persons from the south of Sudan, the majority of which are Christians, have been forced out of their homes. People who live in oil rich areas have been flushed out and forcibly displaced by the government in order for the oil resources to be exploited by foreign countries. The refugees have fled with nothing to the north of the country and are there discriminated against in relation to the larger Muslim populations.
In the name of Action France and the International aid agency Caritas, Michel Roy denounced the forced displacement of peoples which started in May of last year. This operation has exacerbated the civil war between the government and guerrillas from the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) in this part of the country. A 1,300-km oil pipeline has now been installed not far from where these populations are living.
According to the head of the French Christian organisation, the Sudanese government is making a huge profit from their oil resources, enabling them to carve out a place in the heart of the international community and bring new money into the company. He emphasised that the petroleum companies exploiting the black gold of this disadvantaged part of Sudan are putting the local population at risk, and launched an appeal to make them aware of the situation.
Michel Roys involvement is closely akin to that of the SPLA. On several occasions in the past, the rebel movement has stated that the oil refineries would be their next target. The leaders of the armed organisation fear that the government is using the resources gained from the sale of petrol to buy arms and thus prolong the war.
In May 2000, the Human Rights organisation, Amnesty International (AI) stood up in opposition to the treatment of the inhabitants of the oil-rich regions. According to Amnesty, ''the civilian population living in oil fields and surrounding areas has been deliberately targeted for massive human rights abuses" by government forces. People were displaced against their will and suffered aerial bombing attacks. Whole villages were also machine-gunned from helicopter gunships; unlawful killings, abduction, rape and torture also took place.
According to witness statements from militant Sudanese human rights defenders, the situation has resulted in a mass exodus of populations, mainly Christian, many of whom died en route to their destination. In the north (Muslim) part of the country, where the countrys capital Khartoum is situated, 4 million refugees have arrived from the south. Michel Roy emphasised that Christian refugees were not receiving the same aid as Muslim refugees, and did not have access to running water or social infrastructures such as pharmacies and schools. (cip-ibc-apic)$
